


Midnight

by Silverbulletsdeath



Category: Twilight Series - All Media Types, Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer
Genre: Alternate Universe, Canon Rewrite, F/F, F/M, Gen, OOC, Rewrite, old story, therapy rewrite
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-13 02:21:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 17,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29145882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silverbulletsdeath/pseuds/Silverbulletsdeath
Summary: This is not a romance, and I don’t expect you to like me by the end of the story.  I’m not recording it for that reason.  I just think it’s important that people know how I began my decent to becoming a monster.
Relationships: Edward Cullen/Bella Swan
Kudos: 1





	1. Prequel

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this years ago in college and apparently Twilight is coming back, and I need something to help inspire me so hopefully this will get me going again. 
> 
> Here are the notes I wrote about this that explains what I was doing with this rewrite. Over all this keeps to the book as closely as possible, taking parts from the story and having this new Bella react to Edward and this situation. 
> 
> Old Notes:   
> Author’s Notes: I had been reading some comments on Twilight and one of the questions, or a variation of a common question, was ‘what would happen if the obsession that Bella and Edward have toward each other was only one sided’. As it is, most people agree that they have a less than healthy relationship. But, what if instead of both of them falling in love, only one of them did? I choose the vampire for obvious, and maybe less obvious, reasons. The second disclaimer and warning will only show up in this chapter, if you don’t want spoilers or more of an explanation don’t read them, but they are a bit important, especially in the area of covering my ass.
> 
> Disclaimer 2: I’m serious; none of this belongs to me. Every character is taken from Twilight; I even kept to the plot as carefully as I could, combining and changing chapters as little as I could while also staying true to my rewrite. I also paraphrase and directly quote Meyer, but I do not have any marks for these parts as I don’t know how much they changed while going through revision, and I find any sort of marks usually take away from the reading experience and would more likely set the wrong tone than what I’m going for. 
> 
> Warning 2: In order to create a different tone and so I wouldn’t be constantly quoting Meyer, I created a different personality for Bella. This Bella has the same past (basically, a few minor differences), but instead of being based on the everyday girl, she was based on an archetype, though whether she still embodies that archetype completely as the story continues is yours to decide.

How fucking shallow was I? My mother was in mortal danger and I was driving to my death in the hope that a vampire would hold up his end of the deal and release my mother when I arrived. What if he killed her anyway? What was holding him to his end of the deal? Would he be oddly courteous and release her like he said or would he think that my expression when I saw my mom’s unmoving, dead body on the ground would break me and make my death all that much sweeter? I shuddered. I didn’t want to think like that. Mom had to be okay or this entire thing was pointless. My death would be senseless, my name just another figure among the hundreds that had died under his thirst. 

This was my fault. If only I had used my brain somewhere between when this began and my death. I should have pushed more. I should have told Edward how I really felt about his stupid secret and that I found him a creep and repulsive. But instead I held my tongue and let myself be pushed around, and then I had just gone with his stupid plan to ship me off to Phoenix. Yeah, because that wasn’t a stupid ass place to send me, no one would be able to guess that the city I grew up in would be the one I want to when I ran away. 

My last moments on earth and I was hungry and pissed. I couldn’t even just find one person to place the blame on. There were so many people, so many ideas and actions that, in hindsight, were fucking stupid, but had seemed so clever at the time. The hunter was an obvious mistake, but I was scared of him. No matter how many times I reminded myself that the hunter acted like a bad action film villain and was probably more used to actually hunting a person through a forest or whatever, my body still shook at the thought of actually meeting him again. Probably it was the fact that he could snap me like a twig. No matter how stupid and cliché he was, he was an experienced hunter with senses and powers that greatly overshadowed my own weak human ones. 


	2. Old Town, New Faces

I stared out the car door, refusing to look at my mother. Really, she claimed I had a choice, but the heavy-handed suggestions and reasons that I was better off in Forks Washington had basically made my decision for me. Did she have to run off with her fiancé at such an inconvenient time? Why couldn’t she been happy like she had been for the last two years just dating the idiot and keeping in contact with him during the recruiting season with the “family” cell phone? Mom knew how much I hated Forks. The town was too small, too cold, and too rainy. My father was the one who loved the place. He’d married my mother in Vegas one wild year and when my mother realized that he expected her to live in the middle of nowhere, she had run all the way to Phoenix Arizona and never looked back. Mom almost always spoke fondly of my father, but she never went with me to visit dad when I was younger. Actually, she had continued to avoid Charlie even after I had put my foot down and dad and I started to go on two-week vacations to California instead of spending those dreary two weeks in hick town Forks.

“You alright honey?” asked Renee. I continued to look out the window, ignoring my mother and her false concern. “Bella?”

“Yeah mom, I’m great. You’re shipping me off to the gloomiest part of Washington with a father I hardly know in the middle of the school year while you run off with your fiancé. I’m just peachy,” I said with a roll of my eyes.

“We’re married, Bella, and I thought we agreed that this was for the best. This way you can continue your studies without interruption, and Charlie gets to see you for longer than two weeks once a year. It’s not really fair to him that I’ve basically monopolized you for most your life,” said Renee. “Plus, I think this is a good change for you.”

“Everyone drinks in high school. You can’t tell me that you didn’t drink at my age,” I said, still looking out the window. My mother sighed. “I don’t see how taking me away from my friends to live in some backwater little town with a sheriff is going to save me.”

“I told you that this is not about you. I want to be with Phil, and since I don’t want to disrupt your schooling more than I have to, we agreed to send you to your father,” said my mother. I snorted.

“Who the hell are ‘we’?” I said resting my head against my arm and propping my elbow on the door.

“Language Isabella,” said my mother. 

We drove the rest of the way to the airport in silence, both of us fuming. We got out, and mom helped me drag my two suite cases to check in. I coughed up the money for the extra checked baggage since my mom and Phil had spent all theirs on their wedding and honeymoon and the little they had saved they needed for their recruiting road trip. Well, alright, that wasn’t quite fair. Phil had bought me a laptop as a way to say he was sorry. But still, I didn’t have all that much money since I only had a summer babysitting job and no allowance since my mother couldn’t afford to give me one. I hugged my mother stiffly before getting in line to go through security.

“Tell Charlie I said ‘hi’!” called my mother. I waved my hand over my head. I told the poor man the same thing every year since my erratic, short visits with him began. 

I knew this route from when I was a child. It was a three-hour flight to Seattle and from there I connected onto a smaller plane for an hour long flight to Port Angeles. From there, it would be an hour drive to Forks. An entire day wasted going somewhere I hated, great. Still, I guess I was looking forward to seeing my father. I didn’t know him that well. I got sporadic phone calls during the year where he would talk about either people from Forks I didn’t know or about mundane things like the weather and ask how I was doing in school. It was still up in the air whether we would have internet up in Forks and even whether we could get cell reception there, which was one the reasons I had gotten the laptop instead of a cell phone.

I stopped at my seat and first put down my purse on the window seat and then slipped off my backpack and shoved into the overhead. 

When I was little I had thought that dad didn’t like me. He hadn’t come with my mom and me to Phoenix, and I only got presents during holidays and saw him one week out of the entire year. When I did see him, he was always so distant. Later I found out he was just not that demonstrative or in tune with his feelings, but I could see why my mother fell for him. He was charming, in an awkward sort of way, and loyal to a fault. When my mother had called a week ago about her plans to run away with Phil, Charlie hadn’t complained about her dumping his seventeen year old daughter on him. Actually, dad seemed genuinely pleased that I was coming to live with him for the first time since mom ran away with me when I was a baby.

And I liked my dad. It was nice to have two weeks in California with him. He was a bit gruff and had a lot of rules about how late I could be out and the people I could hang out with during our trips, but I had always been alright with it because he was my dad. I guess I should have been more pissed that a man I hardly ever saw and was only connected to through blood was trying to control me, but he acted like a dad, unlike my mom, who went from being my bubbly best friend to stern mother figure whenever the situation suited her. Charlie always acted like a father. He was doting but stern and obsessed with his job. Plus, he was going to help me get a car. I had been dreaming about it for a while now ever since mom let me behind the wheel to give me a taste of what it was like. Not even driver’s ed. was able to squelch my need to be behind the wheel. Still, in order to get that car, I had to go to Forks, and I hated Forks, and my father knew that. These first few months were going to be miserable. 

The layover had me walking around the airport and bored out of my mind. I had read the trashy book I’d stashed for the flight and my ipod was dead. Now I was snacking on a burger and looking at all the places that housed the most popular books at the back of their ‘stores’. I browsed through them quickly, looking for something that might take two hours to read. Almost all of it was uninteresting, if simply because I found porn more interesting to watch then read and tended to skip that parts in books my mother got into. Besides ‘romance’ books there were always popular books. But I didn’t really like overt fantasy and I kept coming across a book based on a game. I finally just grabbed the book on the game, feeling like a nerd, and headed over to catch my flight since the gate was a good walk and they would probably start boarding in fifteen minutes. 

When I finally landed, I threw away the book and decided that looking at all the stupid trees on the drive home was better than trying to stomach that crap. I walked out of the secured area, or whatever it’s called, glancing at the security guard who looked bored out of his mind as he made sure that no one tried to walk back through with an extra bag or something. 

Charlie stood to the side of the escalators, looking to all the world like he was standing before a firing squad. I walked over to him and gave him a hug as I always did. He stiffly hugged me with one arm, and we headed down the escalators to get my bags. It was strange walking next to Charlie, he always wore his Police Chief uniform when he was in Forks, or anywhere close, like he was ready for whenever someone might need him at any moment and he wanted to look professional. I always felt like I was in some sort of trouble when I was with him. He did dress down, but only when he was fishing or he ran out of uniforms because he’d put off doing laundry too long. 

As we waited with the rest of the crowd at baggage claim, Charlie cleared his throat. 

“It’s good to see you Bell’s,” said Charlie. I ignored him, it always took him so long to say anything in my presence that I had taken to trying to remember what I said to him verbatim ever since I was seven so I could remember and respond to what he was probably talking about.

“I found a good car for you, really cheap.” That caught my attention. Forks wouldn’t be so unbearable if I had the option to get away from it at least once a week. Of course, he wouldn’t be saying that if he knew I almost got arrested six months ago for underage drinking. He probably would threaten anyone with a car. I wouldn’t to be to get Port Angele if he knew that.

“Really? Is it at a good price?” I asked. Charlie said he’d help me pay for it, but the thing was still going to put a dent in my savings. I wondered if I could get a part time job somewhere near Forks. I had no intention of going to a college anywhere near this cold, dreary place so I had to start saving up for it now. I didn’t think I’d get much help from dad, and while I could probably get enough loans if I saved up, I probably wouldn’t get enough scholarships to compensate for the money I didn’t get. 

“Yeah, it’s an old truck, Chevy,” said Charlie still looking slightly uncomfortable. The belt started to move and everyone moved forward to try and get their baggage first. I held back with Charlie, trying to see through a tiny slit to see if one of my bags was starting to go it around yet. 

“I got it off Billy. You remember him, right?” asked Charlie. I tried to remember back to the few conversations I’d had with my father.

“He’s your friend from the reservation. He has a son.” I paused trying to remember the boy’s name. “Caleb.”

“Jacob,” said my dad with a nod, and then with expert ease he moved through the crowd of people to get my bag. I made my way to where I saw my other bag just entering and hauled it out onto its rollers and went to where I saw Charlie standing with my duffle in hand. 

“Anyway,” Charlie picked up as we headed together toward the parking lot. “He’s in a wheelchair now and can’t drive, and Jacob isn’t old enough yet, so I got a really good deal on the car.”

“How much?” I asked, afraid that the low cost meant I’d be paying for everything.

“I already got it for you,” said Charlie and then quickly went to stash my duffle into the back of his car. I froze for a second. That meant, besides perhaps a few bills I’d have to chuck out to keep it running, I had just gotten the thing for free. I knew there was a reason I liked my dad. Now, if only he didn’t live in the boondocks and in a town where it rained all the fucking time. 

“Thanks dad,” I said, as I gave my roller to him to put in the trunk while I walked to the passenger seat and slid in. I was shaking lightly. My mother had tried to help me buy more appropriate clothes, but it always took my body time to adjust to the extreme weather difference here. Of course, I had to be sent to Forks in the middle of what felt like a cold spell, that was just my luck.

Charlie slipped into the car, paid the two dollars for the hour he might have used half of, and we were off. I glared out the window, and Charlie sat stiff with his eyes on the road. 

Washington was nice, I would give it that. The scenery reminded me of something from a Christmas special or card. The weather was cold and miserable, just this side of freezing. But snow clung to some nocks and crannies still, and ice kept the car slow, but reflected light off the trees and dead grass around us was visually captivating so at least one good thing came from the miserable weather. 

It took us forever, but we finally pulled into Charlie’s place. I saw the truck immediately. It was an old, rusty, red thing that looked like it might collapse in on itself at any moment. I walked over and let my eyes wander over it. The truck wasn’t bad. I was lucky that my mother forced me to drive back sophomore year. I was a city girl. I might have been born in the country, but I loved the city. I wanted to spend as much time as I could in its bustle and nightlife. Most city girls never got their license; I know a lot that saw a license as an unnecessary abstract. 

Not only that, but I hadn’t thought that I would even try to get a car until I was in college, and this thing looked a lot better than a few cars I’d seen given to teens at my school, so I could live with it. Plus, as nice as it would be to have a sports car, it probably wouldn’t endear me to my classmates or be very practical out in the boonies where there was ice and snow. I’d probably wreck it within the first day of trying to drive it. So, yeah, the old truck would do until I could afford something better or it fell apart.

I headed inside then, the rain already soaking through my thin jacket, and I hoped that I’d remembered to pack my umbrella in the roller or I’d be buying one soon. I guessed I should have got a raincoat, but I hated those things. They chaffed and crinkled when I walked. It was worse than walking on high heels. 

Charlie was already inside and hauling my stuff up the stairs, the roller scuffing as it hit every step and the duffle slung over his shoulder. I slipped off my shoes and dropped my purse and backpack in the living room and went to get something to drink.

When Charlie started heading down the stairs, I grabbed a bag of chips and my backpack and purse and changed places with him. It was weird being in my old room. For one thing, it hadn’t changed since I was fourteen. If I was going to stay here for any extended amount of time, it needed a serious makeover. The only changes Charlie had ever made were switching the crib for a bed and adding a desk. I needed to rip down the ugly yellow curtains. If, for some reason, I have to stay here for college then I’d be repainting the walls also, though all my posters might cover up the baby water colors if I was lucky. 

I grabbed the laptop out of my backpack, turned it on, and checked that Charlie had gotten wireless. I sighed in relief when I saw it hook up and was glad my mother had convinced him to get it. The rest of the short day before dinner was spent putting away my clothes and setting up my bathroom junk. It was nice, just wasting time and stretching my legs. If I had just arrived at mom’s, she would be trying to help and talking my ear off. Charlie left me to adjust by myself. He didn’t hover and make me want to strangle him. 

I sat on my bed with a sigh. From what I gathered from the stories mom had babbled at me while I was refusing to talk to her, Forks High School was going to be a lot different than what I was used to. There were only three hundred and fifty-seven students to start with. In my old school there were seven hundred people in the junior class alone. Someone new came into our school and the only way people knew was if the teachers made them introduce themselves and the group they eventually would assimilate into. Here, everyone would know. A new face would show up, and the gossip would probably spread like wildfire and everyone would know who I was and probably have twenty ludicrous reasons why I was showing up in the middle of the school year.

I sorted through my clothes, looking for the perfect new girl, first day of school, outfit. Most of the clothing I had would leave me freezing in Fork’s ridiculously damp weather, so I would have to wear something new. I looked into the mirror, dragging one of the new sweaters with me. I had dark brown hair with blond and red highlights that only showed in the bright sunlight. My skin refused to tan, so it was white and my friends swore it shone gently under the sun. Here it would probably look grey and lifeless, which meant I needed to make sure my makeup was handy. I was half an inch under being average height, with hazel eyes, pierced ears, and bitten nails. I needed to wear something with color. Probably red so my hair wouldn’t look so dark compared to my skin and I wouldn’t have to cake on blush to look like I had a bit of color in my cheeks. 

I sighed; I could only imagine at the time that the next day was going to be the longest day of my life.

\----

I didn’t sleep well that night. The rain fell heavy and loud on the rooftop. The next morning, fog fell thick outside, and I sighed. I’d need some products so that my hair wouldn’t fiz, and I was already running behind schedule. I sprinted downstairs when I had gotten ready and heard Charlie’s cruiser start up as he headed off for work. On the kitchen table was a hallmark card with my car keys on top of it. I grabbed them off the table and grabbed one of the pop tarts dad had left me and took a quick bite as I ran out the door.

I always found Forks creepy in the morning, which was another reason I hadn’t wanted to return every summer. Don’t get me wrong, I love my dad, but he is obsessed with my mom, or at least the idea of her he has in his head. He didn’t stalk her, obviously, but he had pictures of her and us together as a family everywhere. The picture of my mother and Charlie happy, and probably drunk, in Los Vegas after they had gotten drunk was proudly displayed above the mantle. And that wasn’t the only creepy picture in the house, the hallway was worse. I flipped my ‘new’ umbrella opened and jogged to my truck. The old thing spluttered a little when I turned the key but started up fine after that. 

When I first saw the sign to Forks High School, I wondered if the town was playing an elaborate trick on me. As I drove into a small area of gravel and turned into where there were a about half a dozen or so cottage looking houses, I noticed that they all had numbers on them except the first cabin that read Front Office. This did not look good. Well, at least I didn’t think I would be going through any metal detectors. Though, why the hell did they have separate buildings in a place that rained all the time? I was going to get so wet. I took in a deep breath before I opened the door. 

The inside of the building was sweltering and filled with plants. I walked up to the counter and saw an older looking woman with bright red hair and huge jeweled glasses reading. I tapped on the counter to get the woman’s attention off her book.

“Isabella Swan,” I said when she looked up at me. She smiled easily and looked through her pile of papers that hid her desk. I tapped nervously wondering what was going through the woman’s head. Sure, she’d smiled, but it had that knowing little smirk under it that said the woman knew exactly who I was. Yes, I was the sheriff’s daughter, but I was also the daughter of the flighty girl the sheriff married in a moment of weakness. I was also the stubborn brat who refused to come and visit her father in Forks for the last three years. 

“I have your schedule right here, and a map of the school,” said the woman. She quickly explained the packet, showing and prattling off what they meant. I folded up the map and put it in my coat pocket and shoved the rest of it in my bag. Mostly the stuff was things I needed to do to catch up on homework that the teachers didn’t feel like explaining to me and random trivia about the school. I kept the notes that the teachers had to sign in place where it would be easy to grab them and went to move my truck to the student parking lot. 

I was pretty sure I’d missed first bell, or whatever it was here. I parked and checked the map where my classes were circled and numbered by time. I looked around as I slipped out and tried not to let any of the rain hit me. Most of the cars in the area were either equally as battered as my car or in worse shape. There was only one shiny new Volvo that sat pristine and obvious in the crowd of Junkers. Apparently someone rich enough to waste a lot of money on a car for an inexperienced teenager had moved into the neighborhood.

I checked the map as I came to the building with a huge three on the front. I wondered if somehow the building was bigger on the inside. People were still trickling in, so I couldn’t be too late. The classroom was small; the floor was linoleum and was covered in water and spots of mud. Most people were hanging up raincoats at hooks near the door and I leaned my umbrella near them. 

I took out the first slip and headed to where the teacher was standing. He was a tall balding man who had a nameplate on the desk that indentified him as Mr. Mason. I looked at it dubiously for a second, wondering just how stupid these people were that they forgot the teacher’s name in such a small school.

Mr. Mason suggested that I read everything on the reading list but didn’t require me to write the papers I missed or take the quizzes and tests. I could even skip the next paper for the book they were reading now and the daily quizzes for it, but I was expected to be up to date by the next book that we started reading in a week and a half. I nodded and decided that all the teachers would probably be trying to kill any social life I could scrounge up with the amount of catch-up work I had to do. I sat down and went over the reading list; it had Bronte, Shakespeare, Chaucer, and Faulkner. I had only read Shakespeare before. 

I understood nothing about the class, I hadn’t read the book, the last thing I’d been reading was _Lord of the Flies_ , and that had been about ten times more interesting then this sounded, and considering how preachy that book was, that was saying something. 

The bell rang; it was a honking noise that came from what sounded like old speakers outside. Every chair scraped across the floor as people started to leave. A few people glanced over at me, and I wondered if they were planning some sort of prank. I went over the typical pranks. In my old school we always joked about having a pool on the fourth floor, or that there was a King hall that had classes specifically detailing ‘sexual education’ which included practical classes and plenty of condoms with lube. The last part was left off if we wanted a few laughs by knowing that later the freshmen would be wandering around school after the last bell looking for the hall until someone corrected them. Or we would make the story more and more ridiculous until they realized we were having fun. The nerds had their own version of\f the pool thing, a hall of magic and magical creatures, but then there were probably a few idiots who went looking for that also.

Speaking about nerds, it looked like one was heading toward me now. He had greasy hair and pimples all over his face. 

“You’re Isabella Swan.” It was a statement. I looked him up and down. He didn’t look smug or playful as he came over. He looked a bit nervous but certain, the kind of person who followed the rules and tried to be nice to everyone, when he told on a student, he wasn’t being cruel or sucking up but was just telling because he was trying to do the right thing, which made it even more annoying in my opinion.

“Bella,” I corrected. 

“What’s your next class?” he asked while shoving his arm into a raincoat. 

“Government with Jefferson in building six,” I said.

“I’ll point you in the right direction,” he said with a nod. He quickly walked away and I followed, ignoring the fact that I had a map; it was easier to just let him do what he wanted. He definitely wasn’t going to be anyone I associated, and it was clear he had no interest in being friends, but I was grateful he’d stopped the more obnoxious teens from trying to steer me in the wrong direction. 

I broke off and went into the next class. Government ended up being boring, I had the same class basically in History back in Phoenix. Which was weird, but whatever. Next was Trigonometry with Mr. Varner, the only good thing that happened in that class was I met a girl who talked to me who was nice enough and didn’t seem to be jumping to any ridiculous conclusions about why I was in Phoenix. She seemed more interested in asking questions about my life in the city. After that, she unloaded all the town gossip on me in between Trig and Spanish and then continued to talk all the way to the cafeteria. I didn’t try to keep up or retain all of the details she just seemed to spew. She was like some sort of tour guide that hadn’t had a visitor in years and was just so excited to have a customer that she even talked about employees because at least she was doing her job.

We ended up sitting at the end of a table with a group of her friends. Names came at me faster than I remembered that first day, but I did remember a few including the girl I first met, Jessica, and what looked like her best friend and hip attachment, Angela. Angela gave me a bit of contemplative look and then a shyly smiled and a nodded when she was introduced. 

I noticed that at one of the few round tables there was a distinctively isolated group. There were five of them. They sat at the table without talking between themselves and somehow ignoring everyone else. All of them had a full tray in front of them and none of them were eating. They didn’t look like they were from Forks. They had this latest fashion look that screamed wealthy, like they should be in a pristine community with fathers who went to work to socialize and get away from their wives, and mothers that had socials and played tennis all day.

And every one of them at that table was good looking. I was usually pretty selective about whom I actually found hot, but somehow they all looked hot to me. There were three guys; one was muscled with dark curly hair. The next one still had muscles, but he was thinner built and taller. The last one looked like he had been built out of twigs but still had this allure perfect for people of his body type. There were two girls, one who I would definitely categorize as generically hot automatically with golden hair that cascaded down to the middle of her back. Her pale skin didn’t look unhealthy like mine, and her gold hair actually seemed to lend itself to the dreary Florissant light and shine. The other girl looked like mischievous pixie with a thin build and short, dark, spiky hair. 

Still, as physically pleasing as they were, there was also something very disconcerting about them, a sort of aura that made me not want to get close to them. It seemed most people agreed with me, because other students avoided the group and kept half a glance in their direction, as if scared the beautiful group would attack at any second. 

“Don’t bother with them,” said Jessica. I looked at her in confusion and noticed she was looking at the group I had been staring at. I glanced back at the table and saw the stick boy was looking in our direction. His eyes locked with mine before he looked away. Angela giggled, and one of the boys at our table sent her smile and started flirting in a friendly way that the other girl either ignored or didn’t recognize as him being more than to her and basically broke his heart though he seemed used to it. 

“That’s the Cullen’s,” said Jessica with the same gossipy tone that she’d had when talking about the steamy romance between someone named Lauran and Tyler. “But only three of them have Cullen for a last name, probably because they're dating each other.”

“What? Like a five way?” I asked and smirked when Jessica started to splutter, and I tried not to laugh. The guy next to her looked at her and patted her back hesitantly. 

“No, not a five way,” said Jessica, and the teen looked instantly interested in the conversation. “Rosalie, the one who could pass herself off as a voluptuous model, is with Emmett the body builder. Alice the sprite is with Jasper the masochist. And Edward’s the only one all on his own. They were all adopted by a really young doctor who must have gotten them pretty old since he only looks twenty. And I swear Rosalie and Emmett are only a couple of years younger than he is. It's said that he probably ‘cause his wife can’t have kids of her own.”

“Don’t be mean. Mr. Cullen probably just can’t get it up after seeing so much blood,” said the guy.

“Shut up Mike,” said Jessica with fake anger. “Go back to watching Lauren and Tyler try to shove their tongues down each other’s throats and imagining the day they break up so you can be Lauren’s rebound screw. I swear, I can’t wait until they get out of the honeymoon faze, being with them is like watching soft core porn.”

I chuckled and Mike rolled his eyes and sent a mischievous smile my way. I glanced back at the Cullen’s table to see, who I guessed was Edward, glaring in our direction. He looked away again pretty quickly, but I shrugged and turned back to be what would probably be the closest thing I would have to friends here.

Angela showed me the way to Biology. I was sort of looking forward to Biology. At my old school I’d been in the advanced class, but I’d learned from Renee that there was no advanced class at this school. So I was probably a lot more advanced than most of my fellow students, which was good since it meant all the ‘makeup’ work would be easy and the class would an easy pass. 

When I got to class, Angela immediately went to sit in what I assumed was an assigned seat. The tables looked like a combination of lab tables and lecture seats. There were two people to a table. The teacher signed my slip and sent me to the only available spot next to the only non incestuous Cullen. He stared at me when I headed toward him with a glare that made me pause for just a second. I gave him a glare of my own and then continued forward. As I next him, I saw his nose scrunch and he turned away. I automatically started sniffing my hair until I realized how stupid that was and pushed my chair as far as I could from the weirdo and waited for class to start. 

As I thought, the lecture was redundant, and apparently there were some ridiculously thick students in the class because the teacher repeated things even before anyone asked him to. Through the entire thing, Edward kept his glaze stubbornly away from me, his body stiff and his hands clenched into a fist. What was wrong with him? Was this normal behavior from him? Is this why everyone avoided their family? Because they acted like anyone who got close to them had rolled in cow manure? Or maybe that was his way of harassing new students. 

The class ended and our glances met by accident as we gathered our things, his glare hardened to the point I thought that he was trying to kill me with his eyes. 

“You’re going to Gym next?” asked Mike after class, coming to stand under my umbrella. I raised an eyebrow but nodded. “Great that’s my next class too.”

I looked him up and down as well as I could from that angle. He wasn’t bad looking. He had a deceiving young face with just enough baby fat to make him adorable, and he had gelled spikes that made him look a little rebellious. He was also a horrible flirt from what I’d seen; and from what Jessica had said, he probably had gotten around a bit.

“You know what’s wrong with that Edward guy?” I asked. “He looked like I’d tried to kill his pet all through class or something.”

“Don’t worry about him, he’s weird. In fact, his entire family is a bit weird,” said Mike with a shrug, bumping into me a little. I smiled at him, and we parted and went to change into our gym clothes. The gym teachers named turned out to be Coach Clapp, which inspired no confidence in me to the sort of teacher he’d be, but thankfully gym wasn’t as horrible as I thought. Not that it was good. There was a reason I’d given up cheerleading, I had no coordination and even running could be hazardous for me. 

At the end of the day, I headed back to the administration office with my signed slip. Apparently they really wanted to make sure I attended my first day. I wasn’t looking forward to finding out and working on all the material I missed, but at least the day was over. It hadn’t been too bad, as far as first days of schools went. At least some people seemed to be ready to adopt me into their group. 

I was trying to organize the slips when I walked in the Front Office cabin. Edward was already there, and it looked like he was arguing with the front desk women. From what I caught as I walked in, it sounded like he was trying to transfer out of Biology. I guessed Mike was right about Edward, except instead of calling Edward weird, I’d call him a freak. A cold wind blew in, and I closed the door behind me. Edward stiffened, his back straightening at an alarmingly rate. He turned and glared at me, and for an instant I felt a thrill of genuine fear. 

“Never mind,” said Edward angrily. He stormed out, though he tried to give a wide berth and me as he left.

“How did your first day go?” asked the receptionist and took my slips, flipping through them in distraction. I didn’t even bother answering. “That’s good dear, you can go home now.”

I headed toward car. When I got there, I shook out the umbrella as I entered so the seat wouldn’t get soaked. I don’t know why I tried to use the thing. It was only misting by the end of the day, and the wetness clung to everything and made my hair puff, and my clothes stick uncomfortably to my body. I was going to go home and take a shower. I started the car and headed back to Charlie’s house. 


	3. Talking Freak

The next day was almost felt routine. Less people were interested in staring at me like I was about to strip or start talking in tongues, and I didn’t have to bring attention to myself by talking to the teacher every day. Actually, all things considered, I was doing pretty well for myself. I wasn’t being held accountable for the homework and what was currently being covered in classes, though I was expected to pay attention. Mike smirked and smiled at me in the classes we had together. I quickly got that he not only communicated through flirting but that I had been pegged as his next conquest. He obviously wasn’t the smartest book in the stack, seeing as he was trying to seduce the sheriff’s daughter, but he was nice to talk to. Of course, Mike would learn that he’d just have to learn to settle for a cousin if he wanted anyone new to explore. My dad could be scary when it came to boys and if I slept with Mike, it wouldn’t be long before the whole town knew and then I’d never hear the end of it. 

And I had to admit, Forks was a nice enough place once I stopped grumbling about the weather. I had at least one person from the group I sat with at lunch in every class. It was different from my old school where you had to take special electives to be sure to have anyone you knew in class with you. I had one semester where I went without seeing anyone I hung out with the entire school day unless we ran into each other in the hall. 

The one irritating thing was Mr. Varner, who already expected me to know at least the techniques and equations in math class. He taught pre-calculus and I was completely lost. I wondered if my father had understood that math class I was in back in Phoenix had been Algebra III and had nothing to do with Trig as far as I could tell. Also, gym wasn’t the greatest. During it we played volleyball, and I tripped a few times though I did hit it over the net once.

The best thing was that day was the freak didn’t show up, so I didn’t have to spend Biology with a partner who treated me like I had been rolled in shit. Edward seemed to be the only one who treated new students like shit, and I almost felt at home in Forks for the first time in my life. 

The town just seemed to accept me into the fold. Jessica gossiped like we were old friend. I even got invited to trip to a beach near the reservation; though I hoped Charlie wouldn’t follow me there under the guise of seeing Billy. 

After classes, I headed to the local grocery store, one of the only stores in town along with a few fast food restaurants, a diner, and a gas station. Charlie had limited ability in cooking. Before living with him I had thought his cooking was fine. I only saw him for a short period in time during summer when grilled food was usually all I wanted to eat along with fruits and sweets. But apparently dad grilled all year long, just meat and I hated grilled vegetables. He could make killer nachos, but those hardly counted as a meal and his sauce was even less of one. So we were both going to cook, and it basically fell to me to heat the frozen vegetables, since that was only thing I remembered how to do besides throw a simple salad together. 

I wondered if dad realized that I was a teenager and just as likely to drive to the nearest store and spend the money he’d given to me on clothes or something else for myself. Then again, from what I could tell, dad could care less about if a meal actually had any green in it. 

I revved up the car and saw Edward’s weird family heading into a shiny new Volvo. So they were rich bastards whose parents bought them flashy cars instead of Junkers. That explained why the kids were so weird. Back in Phoenix, we always said you could pick out rich people, kids especially, because they always had at least one distinguishable quirk. Maybe the Cullen’s had one quirk too many and that’s why they had chosen the middle of nowhere to live. It was a bit weird actually. They obviously liked isolation and made no effort to fit in with the rest of the school. I wondered why their adopted parents didn’t home school them or hire private tutors. Maybe they were hoping that by exposing the adopted teens to normal people, the kids would pick up at least some social ability, in which case the Cullen’s were failing because they had turned to each other for sexual gratification and would probably start a threesome if their parents didn’t adopt a girl for the flinching freak. 

At home, I took a quick shower and wrung out my hair before drying off. It was going to be a long year, though I suppose I should have been happy that I didn’t have gym in the middle of school. I hoped I never had to use the school shower; though I would rather shower at the school then go around smelling like sweat. I couldn’t believe the school forced us to take gym all four years of high school. At my old school we only had to do two years. It was stupid to force us to take four years, especially since it wasn’t like kids in Forks didn’t get out in the sun. None of the teens I met seemed to have families who could afford fancy entertainment systems and out here there couldn’t be too many channels to distract them, so there were hardly any obese students, a few hefty kids, but it was hardly obesity problem in Forks.

I turned my laptop on and looked over at the stack of books I was supposed to be reading and then looked away. I did not want to even touch the stack. I thought the books at my old school were obnoxious, but these were just horrible. I couldn’t even understand Chaucer. Why the hell were we reading something that had to be translated because the English was too old? 

I smiled when I noticed I’d gotten an email. It was from my mom. Sure I had friends back at school, but they were the kind I would hear maybe once or twice after we split up for college and who I would send obnoxious request to through facebook.

Write me as soon as you get in. Tell me how your flight was. Is it raining? I miss you already. I’m almost finished packing for Florida, but I can’t find my pink blouse. Do you know where I put it? Phil says hi. Mom.

I was tempted to not respond. She sent me out to the middle of nowhere and then claimed she was missing me already? She was the most obnoxious person ever. Plus, how the hell would I know where she put her pink blouse? Though, I will admit, I had been tempted to torch the ugly thing a few times. I tapped on the keys a few times without really pressing down. My flight was normal. What did she think could have happened that Charlie hadn’t immediately told her about?

Finally I hit the reply button.

Of course it’s raining. It never stops. I met some people. They’re nice enough, but I miss my old friends. Charlie bought me a truck, so I guess being shipped here wasn’t a complete bust. Has Phil washed out yet? Can I go home now? Or, you know, not stay here? Bella.

I sent it and checked a couple of other emails that ended up being junk. I shut the laptop and looked first at my books and then my bag. I was supposed to do homework. I should do my homework so I didn’t fail. I had a lot of catch-up work to do. I walked over and shifted through my box and found the well worn copy of _To Kill a Mockingbird_. There was nothing to do, and this was my guilty pleasure. I knew I should hate this book. I usually avoided reading if I could, but this book had been my favorite since one of my mother’s ex-boyfriend’s read it to me when I was eight. I didn’t get everything at first, like the coke in the bag thing, but I did fall in love with the story and had my mother read it every night when she had the time when I was little. Then my freshmen English teacher decided to try and destroy it by taking apart Atticus’s famous speech at the trial, one of my favorite parts was now less interesting since then and I had decided that I detested English class, if simply because it killed what little pleasure I could derive from reading. 

I should have been reading _Wuthering Heights_ , which was apparently written by the same woman who wrote _Jane Eyre_ or, you know, someone whose name was fucking similar. I hated _Jane Eyre_ , so _Wuthering Heights_ was probably something I was going to SparkNote. I reclined back on my bed, book cupped in hand.

Charlie came home a little later. I was heading downstairs as he was kicking off his shoes. 

“Bella?” he called. I looked in his direction.

“No, it’s your other daughter,” I said, rolling my eyes. 

“It’s good to see you to,” he muttered and headed for the kitchen.

“What’s for dinner?” I asked.

“I thought I would try and make your mother’s meatloaf,” said dad. I looked at him in horror.

“I thought you were going to make steak,” I said.

“Yeah, but I thought that girls…”

“I want steak,” I said. I didn’t want to try my dad’s version of meatloaf, seeing as I could hardly swallow moms. “And I bought some mix for salad, so tell me when it’s almost done and I’ll throw it together.”

My dad smiled. He was obviously pleased that I still ate steak and was happy to eat steak instead of trying to actually cook. I had eaten steak during the summers we had together, but maybe he thought my reaction to the fact he ate steak at least three times a week was actually disgust at the idea of eating steak. I wanted a variety, I still loved steak, and my dad really knew how to cook his grilled manly food, but having to eat that stuff constantly just make be bore of it. 

I sat down on the coach and flipped the TV on, and then went upstairs and got my bag to start on some homework. When I was down again, my dad had changed stations to the sports channel. I rolled my eyes and switched it back to TNT. I loved my drama. Dad could sit through it, but it was an effort for him and watching him trying to like whatever program was on was hilarious.

Soon, I was called into kitchen and I threw together the salad, dumping the greens out of the bag and chopping up some celery, tomatoes, and then throwing croutons on top. Dad was already setting the table, and I opened the fridge and got the salad dressing I’d picked out.

The beginning of dinner was spent in silence. It was nice, the silence was probably going to drive me nuts later, but for the moment, it was a nice change from the constant chatter I was used to. 

“So how did you like school? Have you made any friends?” asked Charlie. I glanced up, a little annoyed at the interruption. I really didn’t want to have this conversation with my father. I loved him and all, but unless we were yelling at a game or he was complaining about one of my shows then his tone were stilted and monotone. He really wasn’t someone who liked to show emotion. 

“It’s different. I met some people who seem to like me. Jessica, Angela, and Mike,” I said with a shrug.

“Mike Newton, I know him, nice kid from a nice family, though he’s a little on the wild side, being a teenaged boy. I’ll sleep a little better when he’s settled down with a wife,” said Charlie. 

“I have him in a few classes,” I shrugged. “Do you know the Cullen’s? They seemed a bit different than most people from Forks.”

“Dr. Cullen’s family? Yeah, unfortunately people in this town don’t seem to take to them very well. They see them as outsiders and forget just how much Dr. Cullen has helped this backwater town. The adopted kids can seem a bit off, but they probably just trying to deal with whatever situation they had to deal with that orphaned them and their journey through foster care. But they are more mature than most of the kids here. I don’t get any trouble from them,” said Charlie with more emotion than I’d seen in a few years. I decided to keep the fact that they seemed like a group of weirdoes and that the youngest had stared at me oddly to myself. 

“Calm down, the town people are probably just jealous that the Cullen’s are rich,” I said. Charlie seemed to take me on my word. 

“Sorry, it’s just that the doctor looks too young to even be able to adopt, let alone have a license, so I’ve spent a lot of my time calming down angry parents and relatives that claim it was the doctors fault, or that he doesn’t know enough and made the wrong diagnosis,” said Charlie with a smile. The rest of the meal was eaten in blessed silence. At the end I dumped the extra into the garbage and rinsed the plate off in the sink. 

I then waited for Charlie on the couch and started to flip through the channels. He took the control and then flipped to the sports channel. I took out some homework and started to divide my attention between it and the game. That didn’t really work. The game was much more interesting then the math problems. After a night of cheering and adrenaline that I never got at my mother’s house because any real sports seemed to be banned in those, I felt refreshed and ready to take on the world. 

The rest of the week seemed to breeze by. By the end of the week, I was able to identify everyone at the school and knew most of their names even if I didn’t want to. One good thing about Gym was that even though Coach Clapp pushed hard for his students to really try and improve their physical ability, the teens at school took competition more seriously than some athletes back home and whatever team I ended up on tended to try and keep the ball from me so they could actually win a game. 

Also, The Freak seemed to have disappeared, and I hardly even noticed the Cullen’s anymore. I have to admit, I’m a bit vain. I wasn’t used to someone actively disliking me, especially before I did anything. I guess someone actively disliking me right away had affected me more than I thought was possible. At first I had been nervous just going into the cafeteria, glancing around to see if he was with his family, when I saw he wasn’t there then I could relax and join in the lunchtime conversation. 

Most of lunch was spent talking and planning for the trip to La Plush Ocean Park. It sounded like they really went all out whenever they went there and didn’t just set up carpool but also food and a rough day planner. By Friday I was perfectly at ease in Forks high school. Mike only flirted fleetingly, and there was no pressure from him to become anything more than superficial friends. Jessica became something like my informant and best friend, and Angela confused me if I was truthful. Lauren and Tyler I didn’t know very well, they spent too much time making googly eyes at each other and necking when teachers weren’t around. 

By Friday, I was fishing for fun things to do in Forks so that I wouldn’t die of boredom or have to resort to nature hikes to live through the weekend. By then I was had convinced myself the freak had been expelled or sent to another foster home. 

I learned that my father spent an unhealthy amount of time at work. He was, and had before, spent all weekend at his job, which left the house to me but also made me wonder how he had any sort of social life. I spent all weekend catching up on homework as fast as I could and lazing about on the laptop. I would have to head to Seattle or Olympia to stop myself from going insane. I had a feeling I was going to spend a lot of gas money going far away to get to civilization; no way I wasn’t going to a city at least once a week. I didn’t like the rural life, especially rainy rural life. 

After the weekend, it was school. Big surprise and I wasn’t looking forward to trying to keep up with classes. I still had a certain amount of immunity from certain things. English I was alright until we started Hamlet, but in Trigonometry I was expected to be up to date because the teacher was evil. The Biology teacher also expected that of me, but that was because he had been told I had been in the advanced class in Phoenix. I thanked God that I didn’t have to say anything about _Wuthering Heights_ and realized that there was no way I could pass by only on SparkNotes because this teacher tested on such little details that I didn’t even think I would know the answer to the questions even if I read the book. 

At the end of first period I noticed everyone looked like they were about to jump out of their skin and were pushing to get out of the classroom even more than usual. Mike smirked as he waited slightly to the side for me to catch up. We stepped out, ready to go to our next class when I saw what had everyone so excited. There was snow, just a flurry. I shivered a bit, but I supposed it was better than hail.

“It’s snowing,” said Mike with a huge smile.

“I think everyone knows that by now,” I said with a small giggle. 

“Hey, isn’t this the first time you’ve seen snow? Shouldn’t you be saying ridiculous things like ‘they’re so pretty’?” asked Mike.

“No, I saw it when I was baby, I’m sure. I also know that this will probably melt and turn into ice by the end of the day,” I said while heading toward my next class.

“Ah, that’s right, you’re an extreme klutz. This is the best day ever,” said Mike.

“Why because you get to see me slip onto my ass?” I asked and knocked into him with my hip.

“No, because I get save you from falling on your beautiful behind,” said Mike with a more seductive smirk. I raised my eyebrow a little.

“Here’s a hint country boy, calling a girl’s ass a ‘behind’ does not make you more romantic,” I said. A snowball then struck Mike in the back of the head before he could come up with anything. He started jumping a bit as some of the cold snow went down his shirt. He was off in a second with a war cry, scoping the little bit of snow that had accumulated on the ground with some dirt and ran after a playful group of boys already rough housing on the ground.

The next class was filled with excited babble. Some people loved the snow, and others were hoping that school would be let out early. I looked out the window and couldn’t help hoping we’d get out early, if only because I didn’t know if I could drive in snow without crashing into something. 

Jessica babbled and passed notes in Spanish class with all the useless information about snow previous years, and I realized just how much blackmail she had on people, though probably half of what she said was based on rumors and useless. I had a feeling that Lauren was the one who could actually do something with all the information that Jessica picked up, she probably had in the past before she became Tyler crazed. 

People were still throwing snowballs at each other by the end of class. And Mike ran up to us as we headed toward the cafeteria and threw his arms around Angela’s and Jessica’s shoulders. Jessica scolded him, saying he was going to get her wet and he rubbed his cold nose against her neck making her squeak and try to get out of his hold while he restrained her, keeping her close so he could continue to get her wet. I easily slipped ahead and started looking for money for lunch in my bad.

I saw him almost as soon as I walked into the door. My eyes just seem drawn to that table by a force that compelled most people to acknowledge the oddities of the school and then spend the rest of lunch trying to ignore the fact that they never ate anything off their trays. But that day, he had come back. I don’t know what it was about him, but my heart seized up in general fear.

I tried to remind myself that there was nothing to be afraid of. The other Cullen’s were probably just as off as Edward was. They probably were trying to get over some traumatic past or something. I just had one class with him. He would be easy enough to ignore, and if I was lucky, I could switch lab partners sometime during the year. 

I sat down with my friends, sipping distractedly at my soda. I tried to concentrate only on what my new friends were talking about, but eventually my attention waivered back to the Cullen’s table. They all seemed to be talking easily together. They were a bit stiff, but it was clear that they all got along. I wondered if, when I sat next to the Cullen if he would tense up again. Sure he was a bit of a weirdo, but he was a rather hot weirdo, and I had never been one to enjoy being ignored and scorned by anyone hot. 

He did look good when he laughed. A shiver ran up my spine. As alluring and interesting as they all seemed, there was something very off-putting about the Cullens, like something was screaming in my the very core that they were dangerous and I should avoid them at all costs.

“Bella, you’re staring,” sang Jessica, jostling me out of my thoughts. I blushed and turned back to the conversation.

“I’m just hoping he won’t treat me like I rolled in something again,” I grumbled. The others chuckled.

“Oh, come on Bella, you’re the new girl, of course you’re going to be picked on at least a bit,” said Mike.

“I’ve been picked on enough by you and Jessica over the fact that I come from the city,” I said with a roll of my eyes and took as small bite out of my burger. 

“Well, this should cheer you up Bella,” said Jessica with a teasing smile. “Edward Cullen is staring at you.”

“Oh, good God, why can’t I catch a break?” I asked without turning to see what look Edward was sending my way. 

“Don’t worry Bella, I’ll protect you,” said Mike theatrically. 

“My hero,” I swooned and grasped his hands in mine.

“He doesn’t look very angry to me,” said Jessica, glancing over at Edward again. “And don’t feel bad. The Cullen’s don’t like anybody, though they usually just ignore everyone else. You’re the first person they’ve shown any sort of hostility to or emotional in general.”

“Thanks Jess, that makes me feel ten times better,” I said. Angela giggled gently, and Jessica quickly stuck out her tongue and went back to her food with a small smile. 

We headed off to Biology, and Mike groaned when he saw that it raining, melting the snow away. I opened my umbrella and Angela scooted under it with me while Jess went to stand under Mike’s. We split up at the door. All I had to worry about now was slush, which I imagined would be easier to steer through than ice. 

Thankfully the seat next to me was still open in Mr. Banner’s class when I came in, and Edward was missing. Hopefully he was skipping this class for the rest of the year. And then Edward pulled out the chair, I didn’t even have to turn to know it was him. I glanced to the side just to confirm, and sure enough, Edward Cullen was sitting in his assigned seat next to me. 

“Hello.” I jumped a little at the soft male voice. I glanced in Edward’s direction only to see that he was sitting a comfortable distance from me with a soft smile directed in my direction. Maybe he had decided to only harass the new girl for one day, or maybe he’d gone to some fancy clinic and come back on meds. I decided to ignore him. “I’m Edward Cullen. I didn’t have a chance to introduce myself last week. You must be Bella Swan.”

I glanced over at him again, wondering if he was mentally unstable. Did he have to introduce himself before he started acting like a normal person? 

It was then that Mr. Bannerman walked in, and I was saved from having to talk to the Cullen and deciding how to treat him. Mr. Bannerman immediately started to talk about identifying the substances that we had been learning about for the last few days. We were apparently expected to spend all day identifying with our partners. That meant that Edward came back just in time for the teacher to force us to socialize with each other. I almost groaned, but focused on standing up before Cullen to go get the slides and microscope that Mr. Banner brought into the room. He gave us twenty minutes and confiscated three of the books from students who apparently were sneaky when they cheated. 

“Alright class, you may begin,” said Mr. Bannerman. Most of the class rolled their eyes and started on their work. I wondered if this was basically what the pop quizzes were like in this class. At my old school we had a rundown of these sorts of identifying labs the day before and then during it we would receive help and afterward we’d be expected to do a write up. Apparently here they didn’t have lab right-ups but just sheets with vague questions to identify that students knew and did the lab. 

“Ladies first,” said Edward. I sent him a glare. I hated when men called me a lady. I did not need chivalry; I used to say it was because I didn’t need to be treated like a delicate thing. Now I found out how they treated ‘ladies’ in the olden days during my last history class and hated chivalry with a passion.

“Or I could go first,” he said gently. He was obviously a little intimidated or thrown off by my glare. Why did all guys think that girls wanted to be treated like a lady? 

“No, you offered, and I’m the one who has done this before and was in an advanced class,” I snapped. I winced a little as I looked down at the slide. I hadn’t meant to be that short with him. But there was just something about him that made my hackles rise and had me acting more like a bitch. “Prophase.”

“Are you sure?” he asked while taking away microscope and looking for himself before I could switch slides. I jerked my hand away from his, his skin was icy cold. A second later he looked genuinely impressed when he turned to me again. He was not gaining any points in my book. “You’re right.”

“No kidding,” I said. He touched my hand lightly, obviously trying to not startle me or set me further on edge.

“I am sorry. I didn’t mean to insult you,” he said. I sighed and nodded.

“Yeah, sorry, I’m still a bit irritated that I was shipped off here,” I said with a shrug. “Let’s just finish up this lab.”

We spent the next few minutes quickly identifying the slides. I was impressed. We would switch off which one of us first identified what was there and neither of us were ever wrong. I had done a lab that was similar to this before, and Edward seemed to know his stuff. Well, at least I wouldn’t have an incompetent lab partner who made me do all the work while making fun of me and would then try to cheat off me during tests. 

At the end of the lab I looked back at Edward. I thought that maybe we were getting somewhere, that we at least could along with each other as partners, and ignore each other mutually during the rest of the week. I doubted we’d hang around the same kind of people. Then I saw that his fists were clenched hard enough that it looked like he was in a lot of pain. Mr. Banner came over to see why we had stopped working. He was rather suspicious sort teacher. He saw cheating in every A and correctly answered oral answer. He checked our sheets and took them when we nodded we were done.

“Edward, perhaps you should let Bella do some of the work next time,” said Mr. Banner.

“I was in an advanced class in Biology and they were thinking of sending me to the local college to take a Biology class when I was in Phoenix,” I said. Mr. Banner gave me that look teachers give when they’ve said something wrong and a student they think of as stupid most of the time just corrected them in a way they found offensive. 

“She did more than her fair share,” said Edward with an award winning smile. I raised an eyebrow, but apparently it was enough to charm Mr. Banner. I would have called the man gay, but Edward had this odd feeling about him, like he knew just what to say to make your day perfect. I glanced at the clock, there was still fifteen minutes lost until I quiz finished. This was going to be a long class.

“It’s too bad about the snow,” said Edward when Mr. Banner had moved on. I snorted. 

“Not really,” I said. At least he was being nice. It could have been worse, though there was still time for him tune to change and for him to start getting nasty. There were plenty of people who could pull off the smiling insults.

“You don’t like the cold?” asked Edward, looking genuinely interesting. 

“It’s not really that, it’s just that I don’t really know how to drive in the snow and ice,” I said with a small shrug. Edward smiled hesitantly.

“Forks must be a difficult place for you to live,” he said. His expression said that he was sympathetic to being forced out of his comfort zone and made to start again. 

“You have no idea,” I said and looked forward.

It was uncomfortable to see him looking so interested. His fists were still clenched tight enough to outline the bones on his hand. But he was smiling, looking as if he was interested in what I would say next. 

“Why did you come here then?”

“My mother got remarried,” I said and took out my notebook. I started doodling on the edges of the lined pages. 

“When did that happen?” asked Edward. I glanced his way and then shrugged.

“September,” I said with a little irritation. They had sort of eloped, and until I got to be a part of their real wedding then he was just her fiancé in my mind. 

“And you don’t like him,” he concluded.

“No, it’s not that,” I said. “Phil is fine, just a bit young,”

“Why didn’t you just stay with them?” he asked. I glared a little. Edward wasn’t very sensitive, was he? You were supposed to talk about more than the weather before you bounced into the psychological reasons why a person hadn’t staid with her mother. I would have thought the people I sat with might have started to ask, but I hadn’t thought someone would push the issue immediately after meeting me. 

“Phil travels around a lot. They thought it would be important for me to have a solid place to receive my education,” I said with a shrug.

“And your mother sent you here so she could travel with him,” he concluded. I looked away from him and concentrated on my doodles. There was a sudden stiffness that made the air between us stale. I wondered if I should ask why he had been absent for basically a week, but it probably wasn’t as personal or interesting. So I decided to ignore him. He seemed to realize that something had gone wrong. But about a minute later he seemed to have gained courage to try again.

“Am I making you uncomfortable?” he asked. I looked at him sideways, and then shook my head. He obviously spent too much time ignoring the rest of the world for his siblings and had lost the ability to socialize normally. 

“No, I just thought that I was opening myself more than I’m used to. I’m not used to making myself easy to read,” I said truthfully. It was the reason I didn’t have any real close friends to speak of. 

“On the contrary, I find you very difficult to read,” said Edward with a strained smile. He seemed sincere, and I think that he meant it to be a compliment, but it obviously irritated him. Maybe that’s why he had been so uncomfortable, he liked knowing who was around him. He liked the security of a small town where he could recognize everyone in town and didn’t have to worry about new people too often. I almost groaned, I sounded like a damn psychologist. 

It was then that Mr. Banner called attention to the class and had everyone who hadn’t finished early turn their sheets in. Mike looked distinctly upset, and his partner didn’t look any happier. Mr. Banner than went into detail over the slides that we had just been looking at and showed exactly what the differences were. I zoned out. I knew this already and it bored me that we went at such an insultingly slow pace. 

Mike met up with me after class.

“I didn’t understand that at all. It was horrible, they all looked the same,” he said and leaned against me. I pushed him away with a smirk.

“I didn’t have any problems with it,” I said smugly.

“Well lucky you with geeky god Edward,” said Mike.

“He is hardly a god; he is way too awkward to be a god. And I am very good at Biology,” I said and gave Mike’s entire fame a full body glance over. “Plus, I’ve done the lab before.”

“The freak didn’t seem as freaked out as last time,” said Mike.

“Yeah, I guess, but he has no people skills,” I said.

“So he has the body but not the motion of the ocean,” said Mike.

“You just confused two things that I don’t think are supposed to be confused,” I said. “You’re a product of inbreeding, aren’t you?”

“Oh, so mean,” said Mike, clutching his heart like it had been pierced and he staggered a little. I laughed and caught a glance of Edward as the teen headed off to class and noticed he wasn’t moving. I looked over at him and saw that The Freak was staring intently in my direction. I quickened my pace. Not that I thought that I wanted to do go to the gym, but I wanted to get out of Edward’s line of sight. I really hoped the freak wouldn’t start stalking me until he knew everything about me. I didn’t care how psychologically unstable he was or that I was supposed to be sympathetic. It was creepy and not alright, not even close to alright. But I decided it was nothing to worry about. I was probably just being paranoid. 


	4. Surviving

The next morning was cold as fuck. I shivered and buried myself under the covers as deeply as I could. Eventually the alarm clock was too annoying to ignore, and I cursed myself for putting it on the other side of the room. I rolled the blankets around with me as I headed for the alarm clock. I glanced outside as I went to my dresser and noticed that there was a fine layer of snow on the ground and under that was probably a layer of ice. 

I looked to see if Charlie’s car was still in the driveway, but it looked like he’d already left. So I couldn’t get a ride off him to school. Still, it wasn’t that far of a drive. I quickly put on some mascara and enough blush that I didn’t look like a ghost. I shoved lip gloss into my bag and headed to grab some breakfast. After only taking a glance outside, I immediately headed back in for the heavier coat dad had bought for me. 

After the first two steps outside, I almost slid straight onto my ass. I was going to have to take ice-skating classes just to be able to walk around here. When I got to the truck, I noticed that Charlie had put chains around the tires. Well, at least that was something. I paused before turning on the engine. I wondered how I would make it clear that I was definitely not interested in Mike. The guy was obviously interested in a bit of fun, but I wanted to get settled in, and I doubted that having rumors going around that I had slept with Forks version of a player was going to do any good. At the very least, dad would probably try to fry my ass as consequence. 

I slowly crept the car to school over the slightly iced pavement. The chains seemed to work fairly well, but I wasn’t going to trust them completely. It would be irritating to total the truck before I had gone to the city. I pulled in and checked the chains again. They really seemed to do the job; I might even be able to drive at a good speed back to Charlie’s house. Hopefully by then most of the snow had melted away and I wouldn’t have to about ice worry at all. I looked down on the chains again. It was actually hard to believe these made any sort of difference. On one hand I had gotten to school without swerving or ending up in a ditch, but it was pretty amazing that just a crisscrossing of chains could make such a difference. I glanced up and my eyes locked with Edward’s, who was watching me from about four cars away. I ducked and let my fingers run over the chains trying to convince myself it meant nothing that avoiding him wouldn’t be a problem. 

There was a screech of tires and, as I turned around, everything seemed to slow down. There was a flash of a blue van skidding only a few inches from me. I didn’t even have time to blink. I felt like I had forever to yell, to jump back over the truck and away from the vehicle, but my voice was caught in my throat and my body frozen stiffly as if I was paralyzed. 

Something hit me, hard. And, as if that had turned on a switch, my throat let loose terrified scream and then it changed into one of pain as my head cracked against the pavement. I gasped for air and wondered if my senses had gone stupid. Something was holding me in a stiff, cold embrace. It wasn’t machine; it seemed to breathe. The van crashed into whoever was holding me, and I gasped as I was pushed backward over the cement, and the body rocked with the force of the impact. Metal screeched and bent and before the crash started, it was over. 

There was silence for a few moments, even my scream had died. And then someone else’s scream split the air. I could hear more than one person shouting my name. I had come in five minutes before first bell, when most of the students came to school who had their own cars or walked. It was then that I heard the person closest to me. 

“Bella, Are you alright?” I was hurt. I think the last jarring pull had scraped up my shoulder a bit, and my head hurt so much that it was a miracle I could string my thoughts together. 

“I’m fine,” I said and tried to push myself up. Cold firm hands held me from moving, and I glared up into Edward’s handsome, pale, face. 

“Be careful,” he said as I struggled. “I think you hit your head pretty hard.”

“Get off me,” I growled before I realized that just before I was almost hit he had been on the other side of the lot. “How did you get here so fast?”

“I was right next to you, Bella,” said Edward. I looked up at him. I knew he’d been far away. My vision blurred brightly and my entire body started shaking. I tried to stop it, but my body refused to listen to me and small shivers continued without my consent and shook my entire body. “Sh, take a deep breath Bella. It’s alright; you’re body just going into shock. It’s alright.”

He helped me to lean against his chest. Somehow being upright was both better and worse. I looked distractedly into his golden eyes, and my heart spluttered in fear. I looked away quickly and then the sound of wailing sirens filled the white noise in the background that my mind had filtered out to concentrate on the one that was trying to help me. I groaned, this was just as bad as getting laid by Mike, well, not on my reputation, people would probably be kind to me, go out of their way to introduce themselves so they could say how scared they were and that they saw it and was there, but my father, my father would watch me like a hawk and probably be even more obnoxiously overbearingly than he would be over a rumor because this he had proof of.

“Don’t move,” said a voice that sounded authoritarian, like the ones in movies trying to help crash victims. 

“Get Tyler out of the van!” shouted some kid. My head might be spinning, but if Tyler was the one who had almost crashed into me, then I was pretty sure that they should take a look at Edward and me before the guy who couldn’t drive.

When they had gotten Tyler out they moved onto trying to free Edward and me from where we were trapped between the two cars. I was still shaking, but anytime my breathing started to speed up again, Edward would shush me and help me get back to smooth shallow breathing. Eventually, they started to work at trying to free Edward in me. It took six EMTs, Mr. Varner, and Coach Clapp to shift the van far enough away from us to bring the stretchers in. Somehow Edward was able to talk himself out of being put on a stretcher, though they still insisted on him going to the hospital. I was carefully moved onto the stretcher and was put in a neck brace. By this time my head had stopped screaming in pain, and only flashes of pain could be felt, but it was hard to concentrate on anything, especially anything that moved. 

I glanced to the side while the EMTs talked to Edward since I had gone silent. They all looked mildly concerned, but I guessed that they were also happy to have something new, fresh, and exciting to gossip about. This was probably the biggest thing to happen in a long time in this small town. 

And then dad was standing over me with a worried “Bella!” as he grasped my arm and looked worriedly down at me.

“I’m fine dad, just a bit jumpy from the scare,” I said, but by the worried look in his eyes didn’t abate and he immediately turned to the EMT, obviously fearing the worse from his expression. I rolled my eyes as they continued to bumble me into the ambulance. From the way he was shouting off questions in a worried tone you would have thought that I was dead instead of just a little bumped around. I did think that my brain had been shaken up a bit. As I flashed to what had happened on the long ride to the hospital I couldn’t help but flash back to the scene. Edward had not only seemed to just appear out of thin air, but he had also stopped a car from crashing into me. When they pried the car off of us, there had been a dent in my van, and serious indentation in Tyler’s car where Edward had put out his hand. But that wasn’t possible. It wasn’t like he could have stopped a car going that fast. The fact that he had apparently run to save me was rather suicidal, but how did he save me? He should have been crushed under the weight on the truck as well. 

I think the worse thing about having to be patched up by someone professional was the fact that they always made it hurt at least a little, and they always made you at least ten times more uncomfortable than it seemed necessary. Everyone was hanging around, now gossiping together even though the bell for school had probably already wrung. The teachers were trying to herd the students to class, telling them that no one had been hurt and that the ambulance was just a precaution. The gossip was really starting to spread now. I really hoped it wouldn’t make school even more awkward. On one hand people would be talking and trying to get close just for that bit of gossip and intrigue in the name of being concerned. But, on the flip side, if people liked Tyler enough they would dislike the fact that he was being ridiculed and in trouble with the police chief because of me.

I allowed myself to be bumped onto the ambulance. I wondered how Edward had gotten out of having to be stuck in the thing with me. Certainly his hand was at least broken or badly sprained if he put such a dent in both cars. But then again, he hadn’t hit his head hard enough to see white stars and black dots; he also hadn’t panicked like I had. He was probably following us in dad’s car, which was either going to lead the way to the hospital or follow close behind the ambulance. I would say he was skipping out on his work, but I couldn’t see anything but some domestic problems and annoying boys who had nothing better to do then write inappropriate things on signs and throwing the occasional rock through an old buildings window happening in this town. 

When I was pushed into the ambulance, I had seen Edward’s siblings for just a second. They weren’t worried they looked angry, the blond Barbie looked positively furious. It would have been a little irritating if they had been glaring me, but it would make sense. No, they looked angry at their brother; as if by saving me, he had done something horrible. 

I was put in the emergency room when we got to the hospital. I let my gaze wander around the room as they poked at me. I really hated blood, and from the pain and a little scraping on my head and even hands as the nurses looked over me there was a chance that there was some. The room had beds stacked one after the other, all of them white and ready for bodies, but only one other person seemed to be curled in bed at the other end besides myself and Tyler. It turned out that Tyler was, at least physically, worse off than her. Something about twisting his leg in his panic and bashing his forehead against the wheel hard enough to draw blood. I gulped at the thought of blood and smiled at the nurse who then started test me for any sign of concussion and asked a lot of annoying questions. My head didn’t feel too bad by then. There was an echoing headache somewhere in there, but it almost felt like a distant thing, as if it was someone else with the headache and I was getting sympathy pain.

“Bella, I’m sorry.” I suddenly felt the pain in a quick flash of pain in the side of my head that sparked right in the middle of my forehead that Tyler had called out in his need to be forgiven.

“Shut up Tyler,” I said resting my head against my hand. 

“Really Bella,” but I turned away from him as the nurse started to unwind Tyler’s bandage in order to do it up properly.

“How did you get out of the way so quickly?” asked Tyler as I tried to ignore him. I rolled my eyes to him and he looked a little bashful to start talking to the person who he just tried to kill that morning. “It’s just it seemed like one moment you were there, and the next you weren’t.”

“Edward pulled me out of the way. Bashed my head against the pavement pretty hard, but you probably would have crushed me if he hadn’t been there,” I said. Tyler had the decency to look down with a touch of shame, and then looked back up with a bit of smile and a shrug. He obviously felt that since he hadn’t actually killed me, and had been hurt because of his stupidity, that he shouldn’t be held accountable. 

“Sorry,” he said and then frowned a bit. “You mean Cullen? I didn’t see him anywhere near you.”

“I think if you had had a good look at anything that was happening, you wouldn’t have spun out of control and almost killed me,” I snapped. He seemed to think about that for a second and then shrug, and then flinched when the nurse patted him to show that she was done. I smirked a little at his pain.

I was then wheeled away to get a few X-rays done, mostly to check that I wasn’t bleeding internally in my head or had any fractures, or something. Afterwards they kept me under observation, but I was allowed to lie back away from Tyler who was already a sleep. 

“Is she asleep?” I groaned a bit and turned over. Edward was standing at the end of bed. He chuckled a bit, and even though he’d just rescued me I couldn’t help that he was still a bit of a creep, a really handsome creep that I wouldn’t mind having a sort of shallow one night relationship with, though I was hardly a slut. I usually needed at least the starting of a relationship before I thought of tumbling with a man. I smiled a little sadly. It was off that the stupid term that I started to miss one of my friends. Bess had been giggly and stupid, and most of the time I had thought she was a bit of an airhead and talked so much that half the people she knew wanted to shove a plastic bag over her head. Now I just missed her. “Are you alright Bella?”

“I’m fine Edward,” I said with an exasperated sigh. “Just don’t really want to see my father. He’s going to be freaked. How are you? They already check you over?”

“I was fine. More worried about you actually. You hit yourself against the cement pretty hard,” said Edward. “I could smell the blood.”

“You can’t smell blood,” I muttered irritably. He smirked toothily at me.

“How are you doing?” he asked sounding genuinely concerned. I shrugged and pushed myself so I was sitting more comfortably. I was glad that they hadn’t cut away my clothes and put me in hospital clothes. Not that I couldn’t replace these clothes, just that I wouldn’t want to be in just a hospital gown in front of Edward, not even in a room with of people all around us. 

“There’s nothing wrong with me. They said something about a mild concussion, but it doesn’t sound like anything that I have to worry about,” I said with a shrug. “They won’t let me go, though. Something about wanting to be safe and have the doctor give me a quick look over.”

“Makes sense,” said Edward. I looked him over as he continued to smile at me; there was something wonderfully fake about his smile. Or unwonderufully. Was that even a word?

Then the doctor came. He was gorgeous and too young. I wondered what sort of genius he was to get his degree when he looked hardly twenty. At the same time I wondered if he was related to Edward. He was pale, like he’d never seen the sun, but somehow, even under the harsh hospital lights, he was beautiful. He had sleek blonde hair, a thin almost delicate figure, and looking pianist fingers. 

“So Miss Swan,” said the doctor, his deep blue-gold eyes meeting mine and sending a shiver down my spine. “How are you feeling?”

“Fine,” I mumbled. I caught a good look at his name tag as he bent over to take my chart, Dr Cullen. So he was related, sort of, no, the Cullen’s were adopted. They looked related, or had been attacked with the same good looking, skin bleaching, virus. He checked my x-rays and then let his fingers gently prod over my scull and I winced as the dull pain spiked across my school before it faded. 

“Tender?” he asked with slight touch against the top of my head.

“Just a bit,” I said.

“Edward did say you hit your head against the pavement pretty hard,” he said with a bit of a frown. He did some simple versions of the test that the nurse had done. “Well, you don’t seem to be too badly off. Perhaps a mild concussion, so no rough housing or sports for the next week or so. I’ll give a note for Gym. Just be careful not to bump your head again and take some Advil. Well, your father is in the waiting room–you can go home with him now. But come back if you feel dizzy or have trouble with your eyesight at all.”

“Edward, help her to the waiting room,” said Dr. Cullen.

“Sure dad,” said Edward with a forced smile. He grabbed me by the upper arm and started pulling me toward one end of the hospital room. He didn’t seem to be happy to be near me now. 

“Wait a moment, I need to talk to you,” I said pulling him to a stop as we started to go through one room. 

“Your father is waiting for you,” he said warily, his grip tight enough on my arm to leave a brilliant bruise. 

“Just a moment, alone, I need to figure something out,” I said.

“I don’t know if this is the right time for this Bella,” said Edward through his teeth. It was odd. I just wanted to understand what had happened, to confirm that he hadn’t just appeared next to me and hadn’t somehow severely dented two cars with just his strength, there was no way he was that strong, he didn’t have the muscle mass. But now it was obvious that he was hiding something, though I couldn’t begin to understand what it was. “Your father is waiting for you.”

“No, Edward, I was almost killed today, I need some answers,” I said digging my heels into the ground and I tried to get my arm out of his grip, but his fingers just dug deeper into my flash and I felt my heart speed up. 

“What do you want?” he said. It was obvious he was pissed, but that sort of pissed look my mother always got when she had done something stupid. 

I gulped a bit but glared at the teen. We stared angrily at each other for a moment, and I could feel my heart beating hard in my chest, and the faster the blood pumped the more his expression moved from anger to a sort of wanting pain. “Tell me what happened this morning.”

“You know what happened. Tyler almost ran you over with a truck. When I saw what was happening, I didn’t think, just ran and tried to shield you, probably hurt you worse than if I hadn’t interfered,” said Edward. His explanation sounded rehearsed, though the last part actually seemed to make him angry.

“No, you saved me. I know you saved me,” I said it more to butter him up, to make him more receptive, but at the same time some part of me thought that what I said was true. Maybe even though his action had meant a bad headache, maybe it would have been worse if he hadn’t tried to shield me; the car had been coming at a fast speed right at my body. 

“If I saved you, then why are yelling at me? You should be thanking me,” snapped Edward.

“Because I’m shaken and things just don’t add up,” I said and stamped my foot a bit. 

“Fine, what do you want to know? What doesn’t add up?” asked Edward, trying to calm down.

“You were too far away,” I said, deciding to do this methodically. “You were on the other side of the parking lot. You stopped the car with your bare hand; there were substantial dents in both the cars. You aren’t hurt or scratched, and your hands don’t seem to be broken or even hurting.”

His face seemed to spasm for a minute. It was as if he was trying to laugh, or be serious. The chuckles rang with a slight hysterical edge, but at the same time, he also seemed frustrated as if I had brought up something he’d rather forget. 

“You think I stopped an out of control car?” he asked slowly.

“I don’t know what to think Edward. I just know what I saw,” I said waiting to hear the part where he laughed, or something.

“You can’t prove anything,” he said.

“What? Are you insane?” I asked. I mean, what I had said was insane, but I didn’t actually believe it. I was just trying to make sense of things. He was right, no one would believe me. I tell someone Edward can move as fast and strong as Superman, and they would laugh me all the way back to Phoenix. But he sounded defensive, like bad guys in a daytime drama that tried to deny their guilt when they had obviously done it. Had Edward gotten in trouble before? Had someone accused him of something and it ended badly? But still, he had saved me. He hadn’t done anything wrong, even if he was the fastest and strongest person while still looking like a twig.

“You can’t…” he did look really worried, and for some reason, I felt bad. He had saved my life, and I said something that had made him terrified. I didn’t understand why he was so worried, like I had discovered some deep secret, but I decided to put his mind at ease.

“Don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone,” I said with a bit of a smile. He looked at me with confusion, but a hint of gratitude.

“Really?”

“Really, I told you, I just wanted to understand what happened,” I said with a shrug.

“So, where’s my ‘thank you’?” he asked with a crocked smile. I couldn’t help but giggle a little at his cheek. He was insane, completely insane, but as everything in me told me he was a raving maniac and dangerous, some other part of me couldn’t help but admire him, and at the moment all I could compare him to was a silly puppy who was a little confused and just after having a scare went back to running around the room and nipping at its owners heel. 

“Thank you,” I said with a shrug. “So how did you do it?”

“Do what?”

“Move so fast? Become so strong?” I asked, the questions becoming more of a game to me.

“You’re not going to let it go, are you?” he asked, looking exasperated but happy.

“No, this is much more fascinating than anything going on in my life at the moment,” I said truthfully. If he was going to insist on being weird I could play along. I had a friend like this back home. She had been a few cards short of a full deck, but not insane, just a bit of an airhead who enjoyed living in worlds of her own making. Talking with her was always surreal, you barely ever talked about what was actually happening or to the same person as the day before, but there had always been that touch of someone real in her eyes, a laugh that meant she knew what she was doing and was of sound mind.

“Sorry, I’m afraid I can’t explain,” said Edward with a smirk and a small gulp. 

“Well, now we have something to talk about during Biology, I suppose,” I said, this would really help, if I had to sit next to him for the rest of the school year. Well, if anything good happened from almost dying it would be that now I could talk easily with the person I’d been saddled with for a lab partner. “Still, the way you acted, I wonder why you saved me at all.”

“I don’t know,” he said and my smile faded. He sounded so genuine, like he really couldn’t believe he’d saved me, like part of him wished that he had let me be crushed be Tyler’s car. 

And then he turned and left, going back toward where his father was and it was obvious that the conversation was over. 

I was a bit worried and a little pissed. What the hell happened to the atmosphere? All of a sudden it had just changed. I shook my head and lest to search for my father. The hospital was small, and it wasn’t long before I saw Charlie pacing in the waiting room. I smiled a bit, the doctors had most definitely told him I was fine, nothing to worry about, and yet here he was pacing. Parents were all the same in this one way, at least the ones that mattered. My mother had been similarly worried when I broke my leg, pacing, and yelling at the hospital staff and Charlie over the phone. 

Dad spotted me, and pulled me into a tight hug; it was a good thing that I didn’t actually have anything worse than an exaggerated headache. I had worse injuries during the three years I’d first tried to be a gymnast, then a cheerleader, and finally a ballet dancer. The broken leg from falling off the stage had been when my mother said I didn’t have to do anything to keep in shape but eat healthy and walk to places within a reasonable distance, and that I didn’t need to be part of a team to be popular. 

“What did the doctor say?” asked Charlie drawing me away from him a bit. 

“I’m fine, just a few scratches that I’m supposed to air tonight and a mild concussion,” I shrugged. Charlie’s brow furrowed like he wasn’t sure he should believe me. But he nodded and stepped back. 

He practically pushed me to the doors so we could leave. I wondered if he was the sort to send me off to school after something traumatic happened, but he looked more shaken then I had ever seen him. We drove home in silence; it wasn’t until we got into the house he spoke up.

“You might want to call Renee,” he said with an odd shuffle. 

I really didn’t want to tell my mother what had happened. She liked to freak out, and she wouldn’t come to see if I was alright, no, she would run up a bill by calling and harassing everyone. Not just Charlie and me, no also the hospital, the school, and Tyler’s family if she needed to. 

“You told Mum!”

It took forever. It turned out that I had spent all morning in the hospital. I spent the rest of the day on the phone or on the couch resting a headache that seemed half from the accident, and half from the constant calls. The rest of the time dad let me laze in front of the television. He even had it on after I called mom. Except he put on those horrible soaps that my mom watched, and, before I had to hear the song for As The World Turns, I changed to the sports channel, that was showing poker, so I went to the Discovery channel. 

That night, after some sort of mush dad bought and nuked, I lumbered up to go to sleep. After dad called Doctor Cullen to make sure he didn’t have to wake me up every hour to make sure I was alright, I went upstairs instead of watching the game, threw back three Tylenols and went to bed. 

It was the first night I dreamed of Edward Cullen. 


End file.
